This invention is generally directed to an improved chamber configuration for reacting immunochemical particles, and in particular to an agglutinographic reaction slide chamber which improves the visual response of an immunochemical reaction occurring therein. The process by which a stable, high contrast visual record of an immunochemical particle agglutination reaction occurs, without the necessity of shaking, rocking or otherwise adding external kinetic energy thereto, is referred to herein as "agglutinography" or an "agglutinographic reaction."
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,596,695, issued June 24, 1986 to the inventor of the instant invention, the slide chamber described therein is configured to intrinsically produce agglutinations for optical detection of a reaction when a test sample is combined with a reagent. Although the slide chamber described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,596,695 intrinscially produces detectable agglutinographic reactions, the slide chamber described therein is less than completely satisfactory in several respects. In particular, manufacturing constraints, the importance of maintaining the stability of each reaction, obtaining a clearly discernible visual response using highly sensitive reagents and facilitating visual differentiation of the presence or absence of a reaction are each benefits which, if obtained, will overcome disadvantages of the test chamber described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,596,695.
Accordingly, a test chamber that is easy to manufacture, produces systematic, stable and highly reproducible tests on highly sensitive agglutinographic reagents, and permits the absence or presence of a reaction to be easily discerned is provided by the instant invention.